Nutrition plays a critical role in maintaining good health. Proper nutrition prevents dietary deficiencies, and also protects against the development of disease. Proper nutrition plays an increasingly important role as the body faces physiological stress. For example, pregnancy and lactation are among the most nutritionally volatile and physiologically stressful periods and processes in the lifetimes of women. Specifically, vitamin and mineral needs are almost universally increased during these natural processes. These increased needs are almost always due to elevated metabolic demand, increased plasma volume, increased levels of blood cells, decreased concentrations of nutrients, and decreased concentrations of nutrient-binding proteins.
Thus, nutritional supplementation serves a vital role in protecting against poor nutrition and disease. More specifically, research has suggested that optimizing specific nutrients before, during, and after the physiological processes of pregnancy or lactation can have a profound, positive, and comprehensive impact upon the overall wellness of the developing and newborn child as well as the safety and health of the mother. The present inventions provide compositions and methods designed to supplement the nutritional needs of individuals within physiologically stressful states.
Supplementation with certain vitamins and minerals serves a role in protecting against disease and contributes to the overall health of the mother and developing child. Specifically, such compounds as vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folic acid, and omega-3 fatty acids such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), play integral roles in physiological mechanisms that serve to prevent, treat and/or alleviate the occurrence or negative effects of some diseases. Supplementation with other vitamins and minerals, however, may inhibit the beneficial effects of these compounds. Thus, when choosing and administering a nutritional supplement, it is essential to understand the physiological needs and risks of individual patients and particular population groups, and the interactions between various vitamins and minerals.